Stand-alone sales of smartcards to watch AD Sports' new pay-TV channels will have to wait until current decoders are upgraded. The matter is of wide interest to sport fans as AD Sports will be showing English Premier League football matches starting this season. The smartcards, available for a year-long subscription, presently come only as part of a package with the AD Sports Humax high-definition (HD) decoder, which sells at Dh999.
They will soon be compatible with the Humax decoder sold by Al Jazeera for this year's World Cup. Customers with an Al Jazeera Humax decoder had hoped they could buy an AD Sports smartcard to view the English matches. But that will be the case only after Humax provides a software upgrade to the Al Jazeera boxes. No time frame was provided for the upgrade. "Smartcards will be available to buy separately in the future, but will only be compatible with the latest Humax HD decoders that are today being sold on the market," said Karim Sarkis, the executive director of broadcasting at Abu Dhabi Media Company, which owns AD Sports and The National. "The reason is that we are using new technologies which will not work with older boxes."
Football fans can currently subscribe to live broadcasts of the Premier League by buying the AD Sports Humax HD decoder and smartcard, by upgrading existing packages from cable providers including Etisalat and du starting at Dh31 a month, or by signing up for online streaming. The new AD Sports Humax HD decoders have been available at retail outlets for two weeks. While no sales figures were available, Mr Sarkis said every available box had been released into the market.
"There are no stacks of unsold boxes lying around in any warehouse," he said. "All the decoders are in the shops and more are being manufactured for release here in the UAE and in the other GCC countries." For viewers who have bought the new decoders or upgraded their existing E-vision or du packages to receive Premier League packages, Mr Sarkis confirmed that the channels are technically activated but are not transmitting content at the moment. The AD Sports channels will start transmitting the preview programme this Friday and matches will begin to be shown the following day, he said.
He also assured customers who are already connected that their accounts will not be charged for any days before the actual transmission begins next week. Subscription for online streaming of the Premier League season is available throughout August for Dh270 for GCC residents and Dh170 for non-GCC residents through www.admcsport.com. After that, the package will cost Dh370 a season in the GCC and Dh220 outside in other countries.
akhaled@thenational.ae